Social networking set for explosive growth in Latin America and Africa due to increased use of mobile phones
By Dusan Belic on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 3:15 AM PST
In Research, Services
Social networking in Latin America and Africa is set to increase ten-fold to 527 million users by 2015, according to research by Frost & Sullivan and Colibria. Within six years, the research company estimates the combined market will be worth almost $2.4 billion, with growth being driven by increased availability of the mobile internet.
In Africa, there are ten times more mobiles than landlines. Similarly, in South America, 80% of the population have a mobile phone compared to just 25% with regular fixed internet access.
Not surprisingly, mobile is the channel of choice for many social networks to get more customers. On that note, Colibria’s CEO Keith Gibson said: “The specific conditions in these markets have led to an increased need for solutions that make Mobilised Social Networking affordable and easy to implement. This is why we developed the Social Center – to provide operators with a reliable and cost-effective solution that provides all of their subscribers with access to social networks. With the growing consumer interest in social networks, it is important for operators to be able to deliver these services on top of the basic offerings to attract new customers.”
At the end, Colibria talks about its Social Center, which is presented in more details at their website.
[Via: CellularNews]



Just a late night quickie here for the 
Canadian banking giant Scotiabank has announced that they’ll move forward with mobile banking services in the spring of next year. With almost 13 million customers worldwide, me thinks a lot of folks are going to love the new features afforded to them. The new app will provide personal and small business customers with access to accounts from their mobile device, and much more.

Touch DJ by Amidio Inc is apparently now for sale, and is claiming to be the first and only real MP3 DJ mixing app available for the iPhone. It offers realtime independent manipulation of 2 MP3/M4A files, including scratching, looping, positioning, equalization, effects and and pitching.
Uh-oh. This doesn’t bode well for Sony Ericsson (